In controversies over global warming, one issue that keeps coming up is
whether it is anthropogenic, whether if the world is getting warmer it
is our fault. So far as I can tell, the question stated in that way is
almost entirely irrelevant to the controvery; it reflects a confusion
between moral and practical arguments.

The dominant environmentalist vision these days is not so much "moral"
as secular-religious. One fundamental tenet is that nature in the
absence of man is the ideal, and "moral" actions are ones that
tend to push things toward that ideal.

You catch glimpses of this religiousity all the time: dissenters from
the environmentalist gospel are considered to
be not so much mistaken as they are
heretics; the only "moral" response to them is vituperation and
shunning. (Fortunately, burning at the stake has gone out of style these
days.)

And since it's a moral/religious problem, the tone of the
debate and "acceptable solutions" are
those traditionally used by religionists: prohibitions, onerous regulations,
demands for your money and time,
and (above all) apocolyptic fear-mongering and
endless hectoring. It's not surprising that solutions often don't
make a lot of sense if you're looking at them from
outside the vision, especially from an economic perspective.

So (in that view) it's a huge deal that global warming is anthropogenic,
and the only acceptable "solution" is to stop it by getting
people to forego their evil ways, and behave more as they should: as if
they weren't here at all.

But I've said
that before. Another recent data point is provided by Jerry
Taylor at Cato, who noted a
Rolling
Stone article titled "Can
Dr. Evil Save the World?" The article's "Dr. Evil" is Lowell Wood,
who presented a "terraforming"-style solution
to global warming (in Stone-ese: a "nefarious scheme"):
loading the upper atmosphere with particulates that
would increase Earth's albedo, and cool us off.
Jerry Taylor seems bemused at the tone of the article:

The author of the piece thinks this is nuts, but it's unclear to me
exactly why. There's little doubt that it would work. There's
little reason to fear secondary, unanticipated consequences. And
it's a lot cheaper than the alternatives.

But it should be clear why this sort of thing is anathema
to environmentalists: it's just not in the range of "acceptable
solutions" demanded by their vision. One of the milder responses
in the RS article:

Bill Nordhaus, a Yale economist, worried about political implications:
Wasn't this simply a way of enabling more fossil-fuel use, like giving
methadone to a heroin addict? If people believe there is a solution to
global warming that does not require hard choices, how can we ever make
the case that they need to change their lives and cut emissions?

In other words: how will we impose our moral vision on vast swaths of
humanity if it turns out to be
unnecessary to do so?

A little sophomoric philosophy:
Scott Adams, cartoonist extraordinaire, has a bit of a bee in his
bonnet about free will: namely that it's an illusion. His latest
forays into the topic are here and here.

I'm sure there are interesting things in the comments. With
(respectively) 312 and 292 comments (as I type), there would almost
have to be. I'm not likely to find them, though.

In the end, what the determinists have going for them is the axiom of
causality. And what believers in free will have going for them is
virtually all of our waking experience.
Decades after first hearing both sides of this debate, I still choose
ubiquitous introspection over a plausible a priori postulate.

Good point. I'll also make a point from extrospection (which I've made
before, but never mind): everyone else seems to act as if
free will exists too. Including, obviously, Scott Adams: he keeps trying
to argue against free will, as if he'd contemplated the arguments
for and against, and had come to a reasoned and uncoerced choice
… against. And he keeps posting about the issue as if his
readers could do the same, influenced by the sterling quality of his
rationality.
You don't see lawnmowers and toasters doing this sort of
thing. (If you'd like to see a much better explication of this point,
check section 6B
of
Bryan's
essay on free will; or read the whole thing, especially if your name is "Scott
Adams.")

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